


A Hey-Ho, Pip and Dandy Moment

by Queen of the Potato People (Atelicu)



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Dark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Episode Related, Frenemies, M/M, Minor Character Death, Missing Scene, Parent/Child Incest, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Sibling Incest, Uncle/Nephew Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28303149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atelicu/pseuds/Queen%20of%20the%20Potato%20People
Summary: When the opportunity comes to talk to Rimmer's brother Howard, Lister can't let all the tales of abuse from Arnold's past go unchallenged.
Relationships: Dave Lister & Arnold Rimmer
Kudos: 12





	A Hey-Ho, Pip and Dandy Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This story is AU in that it assumes a longer interval (maybe two or three hours) between Howard coming aboard and the simulant’s betrayal-- enough time for him to wander off alone so that Dave can talk to him.

Arnold Rimmer’s not easy to live with. He never was, really, and even after a lot of the sharpest edges have worn off in the day-to-day tumble of years spent having crises and disasters and jagged personalities rubbing against one another, he’s still nothing like easy. Not friendly or reliable or warm or any of those other positive, human qualities you’d look for in the bloke you’d be stuck spending the rest of your life with, that’s for sure. 

But these days, Lister understands more than he once did. Not that he lowers his guard—that’d be a fool's choice. He keeps the fence up, and he keeps razor wire rolled along the top of it, because if he didn’t, Rimmer would sense weakness, swarm over the top, and eat him alive—all in self-defense. 

As the great philosopher Graham Chapman once said, “A murderer is only an extroverted suicide.” That’s the essence of Arnold Rimmer, that is—if he didn’t keep turning the bitterness and wrath and self-loathing of his miserable mind outward, he’d self-destruct. So Lister figures Rimmer has to be a smeghead if he wants to stay alive. It’s a reflection of the misery at his core. 

Lister has made some educated guesses as to why Rimmer’s such a head-case, and when Howard Rimmer turns up, he sees Rimmer’s face shutter itself closed like a Florida house preparing for hurricane season. Dave figures he’s got a rare chance to learn more. He just has to play his cards right—but David Lister is the world’s expert on getting under Rimmer’s skin, and he’s willing to bet his tactics will work on Howard Rimmer just the same as they do on Arnold.

After the grand tour of Rimmer’s so-called command, Howard wanders off and Lister finds him alone, pottering about in the crew quarters. He folds his arms and slouches against the doorframe, tucking his active comm handset into his jacket pocket and putting on his most insolent expression, the one that best matches his curry-stained T-shirt—the one that annoys Rimmer to the point of distraction. Obnoxiously peppy hold music filters up through the leather pocket flap, muffled and tinny. 

“So you’re Howard Rimmer.” 

The man gives him a sharp, arch look, incredibly familiar even on a different set of ferrety features, and doesn’t deign to respond. Lister keeps pushing. “Y’look just like Arnold does. Y’must be one of Uncle Frank’s boys,” Lister needles at him.

“I don’t know what you’re driveling on about.” Howard’s brows pinch, his nostrils narrowing with anger-- and visible fear. Lister shrugs. Howard thinks he’s a touch telepath, and he’s determined to use that for all it’s worth; let Howard believe he already knows his guesses are facts.

“Just bein’ sociable.” Lister invites himself into Howard’s personal space. “Seein’ we’ll be getting’ to know you and Crawford as our new mates.”

“I’m your superior officer,” Howard snaps viciously, busying himself with a drawer full of undershirts—pointless, really, since this isn't his cabin and the computer generates his appearance anyway. It’s a tell Lister is quite familiar with: using decisive but pointless action to cover his insecurity is one of Arnold’s number one go-to moves. “As such, I find it foolhardy in the extreme that you would cast aspersions against my sainted mother’s perfect chastity.”

Score! Suspicion number one confirmed right in the bull’s-eye. And Howard is a toffee-nosed git, but even that’s telling. 

“I thought it’d make sense if you were one of Frank’s,” Lister watches Howard’s face keenly. “Because of all the incest in the family, 'ey?”

There it is: that flash of horrible, terrified panic he’s seen a thousand times on Arnold whenever he feels like one of his deepest secrets has been revealed. Lister’s obviously guessed right—not that it gives him any satisfaction. 

Howard stills for a long, long second without looking away from his hands, choosing his response, and then draws himself upright, as stiff as if there’s a telegraph pole in place of his spine. “I don’t know what that foul, filthy, lying gobshite who calls himself my brother has told you in his eternal quest for pity,” Howard forces through stiff lips. “But—”

“But it was still a terrible thing for the four of you young lads to suffer.”

“Now listen here—” Howard is still clinging to control by his fingernails, but he’s just about ready to rumble. That suits Lister down to the ground. 

“Still, it’s no excuse for what the lot of you lads did to Arnold. Acting out that way, tryin’ to prove your masculinity in your own eyes by passin’ the abuse down t’ the weakest one.” Lister isn’t even pretending joviality by now, and he’s way out on a limb, but long acquaintance with Arnold Rimmer’s extensive neuroses has educated his intuition; he knows he’s right. 

The red light of rage in Howard’s eyes as he finally raises his head promises Lister’s death, but that’s just fine— Dave will wipe the floor with this pathetic weed of man if he has to. 

“I don’t like the tone of your voice, or what you’re insinuating,” Howard says carefully. 

“Am I on report, miladdo?” Lister changes his tone, nasal and mocking. He’s mad as hell, remembering all he’s seen and heard of Rimmer’s past—the offhand references to childhood trauma, the casual revelations of deep physical and emotional abuse, the deeper revelations from the psi-moon, the way Arnold constantly tries to represent himself as highly sexed and lusty even though he’s previously admitted to actually having a very low sex-drive. 

Lister has made the inevitably ugly conclusion. Invariably, Rimmer’s childhood stories center around torture from his family, much of it sexual: His uncle Frank sneaking in and snogging him in bed, Rimmer’s brothers or his schoolmates shaving his pubic hair and gluing it on his face or painting his todger with day-glow orange paint… those are all things that Rimmer’s mentioned off-hand in passing, like somebody else might mention an afternoon spent in mildly unpleasant company.

Lister knows, with the same certainty that he knows his own name, that Arnold J. Rimmer wouldn’t ever treat that sort of thing as matter-of-fact if there wasn’t much worse he was still hiding. No, he’d never confess to the worst of it. Not by a long shot.

“Oh, I’m not insinuatin’.” Dave grins the grin that's always made bullies go mad. “I’m just statin’ facts. Makin’ him suck your ‘quantum rods…’ how far down the rabbit-hole did you go? Did your dad help you out? Or did he just turn a blind eye?” He squares himself for the upcoming fight.

Howard advances in a fury, and when he reaches for Lister, he bats Dave's feeble attempt at defense away as easily as if he were a child. It must be the damned holo-tech; Rimmer’s been holding out about revealing how strong he actually is. Or maybe he hasn’t even tested his limits to find out. 

Fear thrills sickly down Lister’s spine as Howard hoists him up and slams him against a wall; Lister’s comm clatters on the floor, the channel still open. “Not that it’s any of your business, but boys will be boys,” Howard spits at him with deathly precision. “And you don’t know what the smeg you’re talking about, you minging little Scouse shirt-lifter.” Howard shows no sign of crashing, only of a grim resolve to reach down Lister’s throat and pull intestines out right through his neck, then use them to beat him to death.

“It looks like I know enough to bring up the family shame,” Lister is about to croak, if he can pull the air for it through his constricted windpipe--

"Mr. Howard Rimmer, please come to the cockpit for consultation," Kryten breaks in a half a heartbeat before Howard rams his fist right through Dave's face and possibly the bulkhead behind it. 

Howard drops Lister in a heap, taking a deep breath and composing himself with a care that is also familiar—the vestiges of his outburst rolling up into hiding with a snap like a window shade on a spring, leaving a purely calm and collected exterior, a thin veneer over the chaos beneath. 

Howard straightens his uniform with a sharp tug and stalks away, leaving Lister lying on the floor like a discarded tissue. Dave lies there gasping for breath for a long moment. He retches a little as he rolls to his knees, then clambers painfully to his feet, cursing quietly. After catching his breath, Lister picks up the dropped comm and reassures himself that he’s still on hold to get his Stirmaster even after this little bit of a barney. It could’ve been much worse.

He straightens his deerstalker and vows that it’s not over.

*****

But it is; Lister never gets the chance to talk to Howard alone again.

Maybe it was his needling that stirred up enough of Howard’s guilt to activate the latent Rimmer family courage—it’s in there; you just have to mine halfway to hell if you want to get at it—and prompt him to sacrifice his life for Arnold’s. Dave doesn't know. Still, as he watches Rimmer react to the aftermath of his brother’s death, he sees no grief or regret whatsoever. Anyone else would think Rimmer was just a horrible, self-centered arsehole. But to Lister, the absence of grief and the purity of Rimmer’s bitterness and anger at his brother’s posthumous promotion demonstrates the horror of his past louder than words ever could.

Maybe it was a good thing Lister hadn’t had much of a family to grow up with. 

“’Ey, Captain Smeg-head,” Lister ventures as soon as the conversation runs thin and a thoughtful frown-line starts to pinch between Rimmer’s eyebrows. “How’sabout we go for a ride in your Lamborghini Sesto Elemento?” He drawls the words teasingly and watches Rimmer’s face turn beet red. Directed at any other person, this teasing would be pure cruelty. Towards Rimmer… Lister has grown to realize it represents the only twisted sort of friendship the man is able to understand and accept.

“Shut up, you son-of-a-goit,” Rimmer spits, all thorns and venom, and Dave grins at him, miming wrapping his hands around a hotrod's steering array.

Rimmer scowls and pivots on one heel to walk away, but Lister follows Rimmer down the corridor, sticking as close as a verruca on the sole of his foot, refusing to be put off. He’ll be there for his friend, and if this is the only way to do it… then he may as well enjoy himself.

“We’ll do a couple of turns around the nearest moon, break a few speed records, pick up some girls… vroom! Vroom! RRRRRTCH!” He makes the gunning and braking sound effects at top volume, bouncing in what he knows is a particularly aggravating way. 

Behind them Kryten starts to vacuum and the Cat picks up the discarded comm. “Hey, guys, I’m gonna order the De Luxe cat tree with grooming gate and radiant heat sleeping perch! You want one? Guys? Guys!” but they’re already gone and Howard is all but forgotten in the heat of their argument. 

Once again, everything is pip and dandy.


End file.
